


rip my petals off and make my heart explode

by fir8008



Category: JBJ (Band), Longguo & Shihyun (Band), Produce 101 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Hanahaki Disease, M/M, Unrequited Love, and people talk about death and dying, chinese and korean names are used interchangeably, rated for language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-09 22:23:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16458137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fir8008/pseuds/fir8008
Summary: Yongguk just thinks he’s catching a cold.(spoiler: he’s not)





	rip my petals off and make my heart explode

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! So hot take, I don't actually like hanahaki aus all that much but I was listening to Froot by Marina and the Diamonds and I thought one of the lyrics would make a great title for a hanahaki au and here we are. 
> 
> Anyway, I hope you like this! It got a bit darker than I was intending, and there's some talk of death and dying and a couple swears. 
> 
> also please support shihyun as he has escaped choon's basement to lie about his age and go on another survival(?) program!!! 
> 
>  
> 
> Title comes (of course) from Froot by Marina and the Diamonds

Yongguk just thinks he’s catching a cold. 

He’s in the tutoring center bringing a tray of time sheets over to the main desk when he happens to look up and see a couple of figures lingering by the door. Yongguk recognizes Zhengting, and recognizes the boy that Zhengting is currently talking to. Talking to, and curling a lock of long thick hair behind his ear. There’s a tickle in Yongguk’s throat that he’s certain is because of the dry air from the heater. He makes a mental note to ask for a humidifier to be placed by his cubicle. Yongguk looks again, and Zhengting is still playing with the boy’s hair, smiling at him with his blinding white teeth. 

Yongguk coughs and dozens of flower petals spill past his lips. 

Shit. 

 

Minghao rolls his chair into Yongguk’s and Yongguk looks up at him balefully. 

“Is it Zheng-ge?” Minghao asks. “I would understand if it’s him. And why you couldn’t tell him.” 

“It’s not him,” Yongguk retorts. 

Minghao shrugs. “He’s dating.” 

“I know.” 

Minghao narrows his eyes. “Then who is it?” 

“Not telling,” Yongguk sighs. “Don’t you have work?” 

“No one booked me today,” Minghao pushes his feet to propel his chair back to his cubicle. “I’m surprised you didn’t take the day off.” 

“Why?” Yongguk grunts. So he’s coughing up flower petals now. Doesn’t mean his bills don’t have to get paid. 

Minghao’s eyes bulge. “Because you have it,” he says insistently. “The disease.” 

Ah yes, the disease. The disease that makes a lovesick person cough up flower petals. Yongguk didn’t know he had it, didn’t think he could be in this position. He didn’t even think he liked someone that much to cause this.

But here he is, with a scratchy throat and a pain in his chest.

 

Zhengting’s boyfriend comes by the office too much. Yongguk finds excuses to take his break whenever he sees him coming through the glass doors. It’s nice and all that Zhengting has a boyfriend - a boyfriend who kind of doubles as his Korean tutor - but that doesn’t mean they should have public displays of affection in Zhengting’s workplace. That’s just unprofessional.

Yongguk finds himself trapped one day because he’s waiting for his food delivery when Zhengting’s boyfriend arrives at the office. 

“Hello, Yongguk sunbae,” Zhengting’s boyfriend bows to him politely. “How are you?” 

Yongguk’s throat is burning so he turns to cough into his elbow. When he lifts his head there are flower petals sticking to the crook of his arm. He glances over at Zhengting’s boyfriend whose big round eyes have welled up with tears. 

Fuck. 

“It’s true,” he says, small voice wavering. “Have you spoken to the person? Can you tell them?” 

Yongguk doesn’t know what to say in the face of a person who has no idea what unrequited love is. This person is so precious to someone else. So why is he about to shed tears for someone like Yongguk?” 

Yongguk opens his mouth to speak when he’s cut off. 

“Shi Xuan!” Zhengting’s cheerful voice comes from behind him. The sad look on his boyfriends disappears as quickly as it came on, immediately brightening at the sight of Zhengting. 

“Jung Jung hyung!” 

Yongguk side steps them awkwardly and purses his lips in a half smile as Zhengting takes Shihyun by the arm and pulls him into the office. Luckily, his food delivery arrives as soon as they leave. 

Yongguk goes back to his cubicle with his lunch, passing by Shihyun sitting on Zhengting’s lap at his desk, and when he sits at his own, coughs up another small cloud of petals. 

Minghao glances over at him and then over at the happy couple. 

Yongguk’s lunch has no taste. 

 

Minghao rolls his chair into Yongguk’s again. 

“Is it Shi Xuan?” he asks suspiciously. 

The hair on the back of Yongguk’s neck stands up. 

“You should tell him,” Minghao says seriously. “He’s so nice, he’ll probably accept your confession and maybe it’ll stop the progression of the disease.” 

“That’s just a myth,” Yongguk blurts. It’s basically a confession. “Anyway, he loves Zhengting.” 

Minghao is looking at him strangely. “But you have to try something.” 

“There’s nothing I can do,” Yongguk glares at Minghao. “Don’t say anything.”

 

When did Yongguk fall in love with Kim Shihyun? 

Yongguk had seen him when Shihyun had first come to the tutoring center looking for someone to help him read Chinese. Yongguk hadn’t been free, so Zhengting had taken on Shihyun and soon Shihyun was coming to the tutoring center more frequently. 

Yongguk couldn’t help but look at Shihyun - and his round eyes and his pouty lips and his long hair that curls around his cute ears. He couldn’t help but feel tiny pinpricks of jealousy whenever he saw Zhengting playing with Shihyun’s hair, or calling him affectionately, “Shi Xuan!” 

He didn’t realize he could love Shihyun from afar that much to make himself a viable target for the disease, but apparently his feelings were serious enough. The usual course of action was to confess, but how could Yongguk confess to someone who was so clearly in love with someone else? He’d hate to make Shihyun feel obligated to love him, or worse, feel guilty because he couldn’t. Anyway, all the myths said if the love wasn’t genuine, it wouldn’t do anything to stop the disease.

Yongguk feels the scratchiness in his throat and coughs, petals spilling out onto his palm. Minghao is always looking at him from his cubicle. Even Zhengting is lingering around Yongguk too much, asking if there’s anything he can do to help. 

Breaking up with Shihyun is a start, Yongguk pointedly does not say. 

 

Shihyun places a paper cup with a cardboard sleeve and a white plastic lid with a dangling white string of a tea bag on Yongguk’s desk. Yongguk glances up at him quizzically. 

“I was reading about the disease,” Shihyun explains. “How it can feel like any other sore throat until the petals start forming. You’re still coughing a lot so, tea.” 

“You didn’t have to,” Yongguk rasps. Doesn’t Shihyun know this is more cruel than kind? He’s the one who made the plant grow petals. He can’t just try to carry out these small acts of kindness and make Yongguk fall for him more. 

“Do you know what happens if the plant grows too large for the vessel?” 

What a strange way to ask if Yongguk knows what his fate is, if the plant keeps growing until it becomes too big for his body.

“I’ll die,” Yongguk coughs and petals scatter about his desk. 

Shihyun leans on the wall of Yongguk’s cubicle. “I know a lot of people never say it because they don’t think it will change anything. If the feeling goes unreciprocated it will still get worse.”

Yongguk brushes the petals off his desk. “I guess people like to keep that last bit of control.” 

Shihyun blinks owlishly at him. Yongguk fights the urge to cough. 

“If I don’t say anything and I die, at least I get to think I could have saved myself but I didn’t. It was my choice. I controlled my own fate by keeping silent. If I told that person and still died, I would have to think I was fated to die like that.” 

Shihyun leans his hand on his cheek. “I guess that makes sense. But is it worth giving up the chance you might live?” 

Yongguk turns away so he can cough up another cloud of petals. They’re still fluttering uselessly in the air when he swivels back to look at Shihyun.

“It’s not worth it if confessing destroys that person’s happiness. I’m still going to die, and if I say anything, I’m going to ruin the life of the person I love in the process.” He shakes his head. “I can’t say anything.” 

Shihyun looks at him, his eyes round and wet with the beginnings of tears. “Do you think that’s a decision you can really make by yourself?”

Shihyun walks away from his cubicle and Yongguk coughs again. 

 

Yongguk rolls his chair into Minghao’s hard enough he pushes Minghao into his desk. Minghao squawks in pain. 

“Did you say anything?” Yongguk asks suspiciously. 

Minghao bumps his chair away and rubs his abdomen. “No, I didn’t.” 

“Really?” 

“Really,” Minghao confirms. “Trust me. I want to say something, but I haven’t.” 

Yongguk blinks at him, confused. 

“Why?” 

Minghao glares. “It’s stupid to die over something like this. You always have options, Longguo-ge.” 

Yongguk rolls back to his desk. If only that were true. 

 

Yongguk supposes he could say something. He supposes he could wait until he feels the plant coiling around his lungs and making it ever harder to breathe. He could wait until he could hardly speak and pull Shihyun aside and confess. He could leave it too late for his fate to change. But that seems too cruel. Yongguk doesn’t care about himself, but he doesn’t want Shihyun to suffer because of him. It’s not Shihyun’s fault. Shihyun didn’t do anything wrong. Yongguk fell in love when Shihyun wasn’t meant to be his, so Shihyun shouldn’t have to shoulder that burden. 

Yongguk coughs up more and more flower petals as it gets harder and harder to breathe. Minghao gives him more and more meaningful looks across their cubicles but Yongguk ignores him. 

“The plant isn’t a death sentence,” Minghao says when they’re at the water cooler in the break room.

Yongguk doesn’t answer as he drinks, the cool water sliding down his scratchy throat. 

Minghao grabs his wrist. Water sloshes down Yongguk’s front. 

“It doesn’t have to be like this. Gege, you don’t have to fucking die.” 

Yongguk shakes Minghao off him. 

“Do you think he’s going to be happy if you die?” 

Yongguk sighs. “It’s not like that,” he says. “Do you think I’ll be happy knowing he has to carry that kind of burden around? He loves someone else.” 

“You’ll never know anything if you don’t say anything!” 

Yongguk grabs Minghao’s arm and shakes him. “Don’t say anything.” 

“I won’t. I told you, I want to, but I won’t.” 

 

Yongguk is in the office when he’s overtaken by a coughing fit, petals getting caught on the way up, getting stuck between his teeth as he’s clutching the wall for support. There are spots in his vision as he sinks to his knees. 

Someone is pulling him by the arm, urging him to stand, and helping him back to his cubicle. Yongguk can feel the sweat on his face, and the petals clinging around his lips like spittle. 

“Sunbae,” Shihyun’s voice is like gentle music to his ears. “Sunbae, are you alright?” 

Yongguk wants to ask if he looks fucking alright to Shihyun, since he can guess he’s pale and sweaty and covered in petals. But his throat is on fire, so he just groans. 

Shihyun’s fingertips brush the hair off Yongguk’s forehead.

“Sunbae,” Shihyun says gently. “Is there something you want to say to me?” 

Yongguk shakes his head weakly. 

“Are you sure?” Yongguk can hear the frown in Shihyun’s voice. He nods. 

He feels Shihyun cupping his face. Shihyun has such soft hands. Yongguk closes his eyes, suddenly feeling tired. 

“Hyung,” Shihyun sounds very far away.

“‘m sleeping,” Yongguk grunts. He’s already drifting off. He’s practically half asleep. 

Shihyun’s hand leaves his face. Yongguk is so tired he can’t even muster a noise of protest. He likes the softness of Shihyun’s palm on his cheek. He wonders hazily if his face is still covered in flower petals. 

There’s a moment where Yongguk feels like he’s floating in space, so exhausted that nothing is tethering him to the earth. And then there’s a soft press of lips against his still damp forehead and Yongguk’s heart pounds loudly in his chest, pounds against the tendrils of the plant that by now have wrapped itself around his ribs. He tries to will his eyes open, but he’s too tired, and sleep is pulling on him too insistently. 

Yongguk falls asleep, his forehead still tingling with the ghostly feeling of a pair of lips. 

 

Yongguk wakes up at home, disoriented and unsure of how he got there. 

He sits up and scratches the back of his head, trying to remember what happened. He remembers collapsing in the tutoring center, but that was really it. He pads into the bathroom to splash water onto his face. He looks a little paler than normal and his throat is a little sore. He thinks he must be coming down with a cold. 

Yongguk coughs and a single flower petal slips past his lips, fluttering in the air until it lands in his sink.

**Author's Note:**

> you can follow me on Twitter @jy_kim8008 
> 
> i have some bigger wips in the works but i'm trying to work on these smaller ones so i don't disappear too often uwu


End file.
